The language we use around sexuality is often one of “blooming.” We use misleading images of “[de]flowering” and “blossoming” and “growing” as if sexuality is something that develops, ripens and then dies.
(Put it in a box.)
Nope.
Sexuality is innate. It is an inherent part of our consciousness that we discover, explore, and learn at individual pace.
We frame sexuality as if it is confined to certain time periods in human life because the implications of sexuality as unconditionally intrinsic to human nature are uncomfortable. Then we impose the veneer of morality - a morality that interestingly correlates to the utilitarian ability to produce children - to bolster our truncation of sexuality and further avoid dealing with the discomfort.
(Put that box in another box.)
So let’s get uncomfortable.
The increased attention to pedophilia in recent weeks is accompanied by a lot of “outrage on behalf of children.” If our investment in this current anger trend were actually about protecting children, the conversation would also include young boys who are just as likely to experience sexual assault. Estimates of sexual abuse rates for young boys range from 1:20 to 1:6, which is on par with estimates for abuse involving young girls. It would also drive discussion and implementation of solutions beyond the suggestion to castrate or kill all pedophiles and the armchair activism of cancelling a Netflix subscription. Being super real, we are not outraged on behalf of children.
We are outraged that young girls are depicted as possessing sexuality.
Movies have shown the sexualization and abuse of young women and girls for years without garnering this kind of uproar. For example, Precious (2009) tells the story of a 16 year old girl who had been repeatedly raped and assaulted from a very young age by her mother’s boyfriends. 13 (2003) follows a 13 year old girl who becomes involved in numerous sexual situations including sex with a 20 year old as a way of dealing with her depression and mother’s neglect. Neither of these received the backlash surrounding Cuties. Why? Both Precious and 13 come with caveats and extenuating circumstances which give us an out to assert the protagonists are forced into their sexual situations. In other words, they are purely sexualized objects and they can still be squeezed, no matter how messily, into the Madonna/Virgin box.
Cuties depicts what we culturally classify as Whores.
(Mail that box to myself.)
In a world where the Madonna/Whore paradigm persists, you can either be entirely devoid of sexuality and thereby virgin, or you are a ho. Which box you check depends solely upon other’s perception of whether you are passive in sex acts (sexualized) or active (sexual). And of course, you can never be “sexual” - in possession of your own sexuality - and “good” at the same time.
Enter the dissonance that Cuties creates.
We see images of 11 year olds expressing their sexuality. We glitch because they’re not supposed to be old enough to have sexuality. Even if they were, it isn’t okay for them to act this way in public because, well, we said so. And now we realize we register it as a sexy action emanating from a place where we are not supposed to associate “sexy.” Which is morally and emotionally dangerous for us. Which triggers anger. So in an attempt to disarm the psychological landmine we’ve tripped and and justify our anger (because even if this process were fully conscious, we couldn't tell other people we’re upset because we feel weird about having put “sexy” and “child” in the same sentence) we proclaim this movie poses a danger to young girls by catering to deviant desires.
(And when it arrives …)
By confining acceptable sexuality to certain ages and limiting sexual expression to certain approved behaviors, we are creating kinks that disguise the real issue.
The problem is not that some people feel attraction to children. Sexuality is a scale and sexual attraction is a range. (If you’ve ever said or thought anything along the lines of “cute kid” or “you’ll be beating them off with a stick when you’re older,” you too acknowledge the sex appeal of children.)
The problem is not that people who feel attraction to children might abuse them. People walk down the street every day registering other people as attractive without assaulting them or the possibility ever even crossing their minds.
The problem is that we spend more time sexualizing others and policing others’ sexuality than we do understanding and owning our own sexuality.
The problem is that we do not regard all people as full-fledged, autonomous human beings.
When no one else can be sexual and autonomous, it is impossible to be so ourselves. It is the reaction against this knowledge, this designation as powerless and without control, which creates the insanity that is sexualization and the accompanying sexual violence. Violence as the illusion of possessing power we feel we lack; violence in the form of overpowering others; violence in the form of denying, suppressing, and repressing self exploration and expression; violence in the refusal to educate about human bodies and human sexuality, instead shrouding the topics in shame and taboo.
There is no scenario in which true and total respect for another sovereign human results in forcing, tricking, manipulating, nagging, or berating that person into having sex. There is no scenario in which someone who is fully self-assured in their own sexuality sexually abuses another person. There is no scenario in which a person completely owning their sexual expression can be encouraged to act in sexual violence toward another.
REGARDLESS OF AGE.
When we embrace sexuality as an innate aspect of ourselves
When we recognize virginity as a state of mind, not a state of body
When we acknowledge that being sexual is not for the pleasure of others
When we erase the idea that sexuality can be defined or owned by external sources
When we celebrate the sexual expression in our own bodies
When we honor the sovereignty of all other human beings, and therefore ourselves
We will take the box into which we’ve tried to stuff human sexuality
And all the anger
And all the dissonance
And all the violence
And all the fear
And all the shame
And all the powerlessness
And all the abuse that goes with it
And smash it (with a hammer) once and for all, healing sexual trauma in all its forms.
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